Custom-Made
“We’re an interesting business,” says Sylva Lin, co-owner, with Piper Booher, of Pigtown’s new market/caterer/custom kitchen hybrid, Culinary Architecture. “Our name reflects exactly what we do. We put food together.” A former personal chef for D.C. politicians and professional athletes, Lin has become acutely adept at building meals on the fly—whether that means whipping up a creative catering menu of soup and banh mi sandwiches, accepting a culinary challenge posted on the space’s suggestion board or pointing customers in the direction of the right condiments to kick their chicken up a notch. Even the store’s offerings are flexible: Lin creates globally inspired weekly dinner specials but is willing to prepare a unique meal for two to-go using the shop’s state-of-the-art equipment, and she’d just as soon sell you three eggs from her kitchen as a pound of locally roasted artisan coffee. As she puts it, “We want to be what the neighborhood needs.” 767 Washington Blvd. culinaryarchitecture.com —K.U.